The Rotherham company is being marketed for sale as a ‘distressed print business and premises’ by business recovery specialist Lewis BRI, together with ELS Advisory and Pinder Asset Solutions.
Rosehill Press managing director Christian Chadwick told PrintWeek that two years ago sales at the business were £4.8m, but the sudden loss of the firm’s major customer – bookmaker Coral – at the beginning of last year had resulted in the company’s current predicament.
“It was a £3m contract and accounted for 67% of our turnover. We’d been printing for Coral for 17 years and they took away the contract with no notice by using some small print in the original contract from 1999,” he stated.
“The original said there was no minimum requirement and although the contract had been amended over the years, that part of it had never been revisited. The Coral legal team were able to use that to give us three months’ notice but no work. So we went from a £3m contract to nothing in a week,” Chadwick explained.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was in the same position, but that’s what they did.”
Chadwick said Rosehill Press had battled to keep going and now had sales of around £1.2m. Six people were made redundant following the loss of the Coral work, and the firm currently employs 34.
Despite chief executive and owner Martin Horner putting £450,000 of his own money into the business to keep it afloat, Rosehill still suffered cashflow issues and when a paper supplier, now paid, issued a winding-up order it subsequently lost credit lines with other suppliers.
The firm is still trading but cannot get credit, and has issued a Notice of Intention to Appoint Administrators which gives the business protection from any action by creditors until next Monday (15 July).
“We’ve got a lot of capacity and most of our equipment is bought and paid for. Our CEO hopes that someone can take it over and keep the place running,” Chadwick added.
Horner also owns the firm’s site, which encompasses a 1,858sqm factory and 743sqm mezzanine space.
Rosehill Press was established in 1986. It runs two Edelmann mini-webs for forms printing, a two-colour Ryobi, two-colour Quickmaster, and large- and small-format digital kit including Xerox Versants.
It also has substantial in-house finishing including a Horizon Stitchliner and Heidelberg Stitchmaster ST 100, and operates a Tharstern MIS system.
Its most recent investment was a five-colour with coater Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75 in 2016, which still has outstanding finance although Chadwick said the outstanding amount was less than the value of the press.
Rosehill Press produces a wide range of print from business stationery and NCR forms to posters and leaflets, and also has an online print shop.
The sale information states that 60% of the current turnover is repeat business.
